Karen Post

In the past few years, personal branding has become a hot business topic. News anchors and journalists refer to individual brands when they cover business leadership superstars and business losers too. Executive recruiters consider a candidate’s brand when they are on a search for the best professional for a position and most entrepreneurs’ success depends on their strong, personal brand to attract employees, get funding and be an ambassador of their company.

Last month Daytime, a nationally broadcasted TV show that airs in over 35 markets, invited me to help out with a special segment called “Getting back to work”. The goal was to take two professionals who had lost their jobs and with an improved personal branding program, help them find the ideal career or opportunity.

Even though the segment focused on getting people back to work as employees, these lessons can apply to entrepreneurs as well.

Here’s the first segment that aired before Thanksgiving and a special shout out to Kendra York who owns Kendra & Company in Tampa for providing the hair, make up and style updates for our two makeover participants.

From here the plan was for me to give one-on-one coaching along with some branding tools provided by Staples that includes printing of business cards from their print and copy centers, Schtickers that provided a branded laptop skin and my design team that updated their brand identity.

These are some highlights from the coaching sessions.
Personal branding is no different than product or business branding which we all experience everyday. When a company has a strong brand, we as buyers have positive opinions about them, which in turn prompts us to select that brand over another choice. Product brands are competing to be the brand of choice.

The same concept applies for people and their personal brand.

A personal brand is what people think, feel and expect from you as an individual.

A personal brand is derived from the sum of what a person does, how they act, how they look and how they keep their promises.

In branding we call these brand opportunities, touch points.

Consistent brand touch points help a person manage their brand and peoples opinions of them.

A personal brand is one’s image, reputation and the impression they leave when they show up for a job interview, a business networking event or even after a phone call.

We all have brands even without thinking about them or consciously working on them, because people, our friends, colleagues, clients and employers are judging us and these opinions are stored in their heads, which become our brands.

The key to successful personal branding is making sure everything you do is lined up with your goals and that you consistently send out the accurate message that reflects the true you.

So when people find themselves in a down state, like being without a job or career they love, it’s time for action.

They need to follow these three brand-building steps to make sure they are projecting the right image that gets them closer to their goals.

1) Assessment and goal setting
2) Create an action plan
3) Work on it, with consistency and passion

I call the process, personal brain tattooing.  Like a regular tattoo, a brand sticks to the minds of the market and it’s put there by choice.

Getting hired is often about risk and if your brand ensures the employer or client you are not a risk, but a good investment that can add value to their organization, that’s the ticket.

Step 1 – Assessment of what is.
What skills, persuasive assets and traits does the person have to build on and leverage?

When I’m working with an individual on their personal brand, I ask these questions.

• Can you tell me about yourself in a 60 second window? Please do.
• Why are you jobless?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• Describe your ideal job or next career?
• What are your 2-3 most important life goals?
• Have you experienced rejection and “No’s” in your job hunting?
• Did they give you reasons? What were they?
• Why do you think you were passed up?
• What tangible branding tools do you have? And what do you need to work on?

I also ask people to do a Google search on their name and see what comes up.

If it’s bad stuff that can tarnish your reputation, see what you can do to change it. Many times you can.

If it’s bad stuff that’s out of your control, like a criminal record, it’s good to know about it and sometimes you need to share this with a potential employer or client.

Next, I ask “What tangible branding tools do you have that reflect your desired personal brand?”

They can include:

• Your resume
• A strong cover letter of introduction
• A personal business card, laptop skin, brochures
• The appropriate wardrobe for interviews and meetings
• An appropriate web presence and social media footprint

I always recommend people buy their name URL, if it’s just a landing page with your contact information of social media links. If your name is not available, get something close, like with your middle initial in it.

As an example: I own www.Karenpost.com

Step 2- Next, one must develop a personal brand action plan to help get them from where they are “unemployed” to where they want to be, “in a great job or opportunity they love”.
A personal brand plan addresses:

• Goals
• Brand essence
• Target audience
• Strategies (behavioral changes)
• Tactics (specific things to do)

I always start with the end in mind. What are your goals?

Strong personal brands are visible, memorable, distinct and relevant.

To “brand up” you, one needs to have:

Your personal essence defined.
A personal brand essence is the foundation around whom you are authentically.

Purpose - Why are you here? What do you do? How can you contribute to a company’s success?

Points of distinction- What is unique about you?
Your name
Your background
How you look
Your skill set
Who you have worked with

Personality – What are 3-4 adjectives that best describe you?
When building a personal brand, one’s personality attributes should be aligned with your desired job, career. Like in my case, being creative, having a sense of humor and being confident. Work well with my career choice being a consultant and speaker.

Promise – one’s promise is what they commit to delivering on.
For example – if you are in sales, you’ve got to be able to successfully sell. If you are in Healthcare administration, your attention to detail and problem solving must be mastered etc.  One must be able to deliver on commitments and promises. Walk the talk.

After your brand essence is complete, then you must weave this platform into all of your touch points.

Who are your target audiences?
Who are the key company decision makers? Who are the other influential people in your network, who can make  recommendations and introductions? Friends, former employers, people you do business with etc.

Touch points fall into three categories and need to be aligned with one’s goals.

These are:
1) One’s visual package
Research shows that visual elements are the #1 influencer in impressions people draw from others. This means your wardrobe, hairstyle and grooming all matter. Depending on the job and position you are seeking will determine the best look for a person.

Additionally, your tools like resume, business cards and thank you cards also impact the judgment you may earn.

2) One’s communication skills and style.
Next to the visual items, people are judged by their communication skills and style.

Communication style has three equally important areas.

Verbal
How do you sound? Is your choice of words the best they can be and aligned to your goals? And the confidence and attitude you exude, is it consistent with your goals and does it lower the risk of the potential employer?

Written
How do you write? From your resume, to a thank you note and your social media footprint, do these items communicate an impression that aligns with your goals?

Body language
What is your body language communicating? This includes your posture, handshake and eye contact. Are you poised and confident or unsure and down and out?

3) One’s substance and behavior.
The objective in personal branding is to be authentic, but based on your job goals; one must consciously increase the volume and clarity of their brand, offering potential contributions to a company’s success.

And finally, one must have substance and behave in a way that validates their position and image and supports all other touch points.

You must demonstrate evidence that you walk the talk, and are what your packaging communicates?

This means be really good at your craft and your job. The most skilled and competent people get the jobs first. And that’s where you want to be.

This may mean taking classes, accepting an unpaid internship or doing volunteer work with another job just to pay the bills.

And you must work the plan with passion and consistency everyday.
Think before you move. Stay in tune to the ideal brand you want people to have in their heads about you.

As a wrap up, here are five small things that have big instant impact on your personal brand.

1) Have a strategic online footprint that depicts you as you want your buyers to view you
This means have a LinkedIn account, a Twitter account and if you have business appropriate videos then a YouTube account too.

A landing page about you is a good idea, one that is hosted with your name.com. And if you’ve got something to say, a blog is extra icing on your brand cake.

2) Keep your promises
This means do what you say, say what you mean and walk your brand talk everyday.

3) Associate with people that are consistent with your brand
This means birds of a feather flock together. Don’t be hanging with bunch of crows if you are an elegant, sophisticated swan.

4) Look your brand
This means put the costume on when you are in public. Whatever your image is, support it with the right wardrobe, car and office.

5) Be consistent
This means frequency of a message, makes the message stick. Look at all your touch points, web, business communications, email, phone message, thank you notes, resume etc.

Need a little help with your personal brand? Check out some of my ebooks that can help you brand up your image and reputation.

Below is the second half of the Daytime segment that aired on 12/15/11

Jennifer Prosek, author of Army of Entrepreneurs, is the founder and CEO of CJP Communications where she leads many of the firm’s key accounts. Her offices are located in New York, Connecticut and London and with over 70 working professionals, the firm ranks among the top 35 independent public relations firms in the US.

You could definitely say that she knows how to run a business or, should I say, how to gather an army of entrepreneurs. Want to know the secret? It’s the ability to develop, motivate and deploy employees to be more entrepreneurial within their own positions. This strategy is the basis of her first book, Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth.

Prosek shares what she knows, how she runs her firm and focuses on teaching readers how to insure that every employee becomes a powerful force for growth within an organization. Prosek believes that if every employee is empowered to use all of his or her resources to help the company succeed, they will develop what she calls an “owner’s mindset”. Her game plan for building a workforce committed to creating new business, forming breakthrough products and services, and supporting growth has earned the organization “Small Agency of the Year” and was recognized as one of the “Top Places to Work in PR”!

Jennifer Prosek uses both theory and practical advice into an overall organizational approach and taps into the hidden entrepreneurial drive among employees and because of this, I highly recommend the innovative and organizational changing book Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth by Jennifer Prosek, to anyone serious about jolting awake their company through empowering their employees.

Key takeaways:

1. To have a successful company, one must develop and motivate employees to be in charge of their own actions.
2. Breakthrough products and services come from those who are empowered by their resources.
3. When employees are passionate about their careers, goals, dreams and ideas, everyone in the company wins.

About the author: Lauren Angrick is Chief Problem Solver for Karen Post’s companies, Brain Tattoo Branding, Brain Tattoo Publishing and The Branding Diva® speaking programs. When not online, marketing and social media brand building she enjoys being in social gatherings and anything to do with the outdoors. Angrick is a University of Tampa graduate and serves is a member of the Board of Counselors.

60 Minutes is at the door are you ready to defend your brand?

The business world is uncertain, risky and forever changing, it’s no surprise that your brand will probably face some rocky roads throughout its lifetime, along with a little uninvited media attention. Whether due to a natural disaster, a product recall, a competitor’s maneuver, bad judgment, a customer complaint or some other factor, your brand strength could be put to the test when you least expect it.

Brand shakeups happen every day and then the spotlight is on the brand and the surrounding events and players. The media, your stakeholders, your employees and customers will be demanding answers and assurance that you are handling things in the right way.

No brand is immune. An entrepreneurial start-up, an individual brand or big organization can get beat up without warning.

So when brands go bad, what separates the survivors from the big losers, the sustainable ones, from the forever broken ones?

It’s not what hits a brand upside the head but rather how they get back in the game that matters. I’ve watched and researched brands from around the world, big and small when they are tested. And I’ve seen common actions that I call brand turnaround game changers. These actions can bring brands—even in the worst place—back to glory.

Should your number be called and you find your brand on the hot seat, take responsibility and follow these actions. Your road to recovery will be smoother and you can prevent long-term damage.

To illustrate a brand-shaking situation, let’s pretend your employees or a vendor did something crazy, broke the law, dismissed ethical practices or made a big mistake, and the word is out. It’s on the news and being talked about in social media. What should a smart brand do?

During this trying time, you must own up and take control of the situation. This doesn’t mean to admit guilt or make excuses, but it means that you should take timely responsibility and demonstrate sound actions toward finding solutions to the situation.

As much as you might want to go into hiding and reply with, “No comment,” you must stay present, with confident communications and poise, so the public and your stakeholders do not lose their trust in you or your brand and further negative consequences are contained.

Bad things happen to good brands. You can let an unfortunate event kill your brand or you can recover quickly from the event by taking these steps.

o Take an inventory of the situation, before you speak.

o Acknowledge the facts, and that you and your team is actively seeking solutions.

o Build a clear narrative that reflects your brand essence and is relevant to the situation.

o Decide what venues are best to tell your story.

o Apologize, when appropriate.

o Select the most effective voice for your brand.

o Leverage the best impression.

o Keep the message positive and honest.

o Manage the media; don’t let the media manage you.

Avoiding the situation will further the suspicion and possibly result in more negative publicity for your brand. Also, remember the more high profile the brand is, the higher expectations will be on all fronts.

To start, stay present. This means taking ownership. Do this in a diplomatic way, demonstrating empathy and concern for all stakeholders, including employees, the community, your customers and those involved in the situation.

Remember the media can be your friend and is a powerful tool that can heavily influence public opinion. Leverage journalists, news sources and technology from the get-go. First impressions depicted by the media are key here, so think carefully before you answer any questions or attempt to explain anything. And because of the Internet, remember that anything you say or do can be kept on record and visible to the public for many years to come.

Choose an outlet that best represents your brand and how to address the problem. Is it a press conference, written and/or verbal statements, social media or other Web resources, radio, TV or some other outlet? Your venue of choice should be based on the event and the magnitude of the initial brand shakeup. But you should also be sensitive to current market conditions and other news, and how your story fits in with those.

Be sure that your website and social media channels have current information regarding the shakeup and the steps you’re taking to fix what has gone wrong. You can even create a microsite dedicated solely to this purpose.

The communications voice should match your brand and reflect the tone for your plan of attack and recovery. Know your audience, build your starting narrative, craft a compelling story and speak the truth. Be sure not to make false promises or have an unrealistic positive outlook if you do not have supporting facts.

Most importantly, show that you’re committed to doing whatever it takes to tackle the situation. As I said before, any kind of avoidance, delayed response or blame game could potentially raise doubts and questions in regards to the values and credibility of your brand.

At the same time, know when to fold. There may come a point when you have done everything you can and now need to remove your brand’s presence from the public radar screen and get back to your business.

This article is based on content from Karen Post’s latest book Brand Turnaround (McGraw-Hill 2011).

To view more content from Brand Turnaround, click here.

Soon my new book BRAND TURNAROUND How Brands Gone Bad Returned to Glory…and the 7 Game Changers That Made a Difference will hit book stores everywhere. As promised I will post the  list of Brand Turnarounds featured in the book in my blog.

Brand Turnaround captures the churn, burn, and return to glory of over seventy-five brands listed below. Some are small; others are global leaders. Some experienced monumental shake-ups and downturns; others were hit with an event or situation that caused intense public scrutiny, negative media coverage, and dinged the brand’s stature. Want to learn more about these brands?

Purchase my new book, Brand Turnaround.

AIG

Albemarle

Abercrombie & Fitch

Apple

American Red Cross

Armstrong, Lance

Aruba

BMW

BP

Richard Branson

Bratz

Brown, Chris

Bryant, Kobe

Bush, President George W.

Candie’s

CHOC’s Children’s Hospital of Orange County

Circuit City

Clinton, President Bill

Continental Airlines

Cuban, Mark

Dallas Mavericks

Dell

Detroit

Domino’s Pizza

Downing Jr., Robert

Evans, Troy

Exxon

Facebook

Fizzies

Ford

Friendster

Geek Squad

Get Lucky

Gourmet Magazine

Harley Davidson

Herman, Pee Wee

Hush Puppies

Hyatt Regency

Huffington, Arianna

Jeffries, Mike

JetBlue

Johnson and Johnson

Letterman, David

Linens ‘n Things

LUCKY BRAND

Marks and Spencer

Montblanc

Murdoch, Rupert

MySpace

Nike

Pampers

Palin, Sarah

Persil

Pirate’s and Veggie Booty

Pontiac

Rolex

Saudi Arabian Airlines

Schwarzenegger, Arnold

Schultz, Howard

Sheen, Charlie

Sharper Image

Spitzer, Governor Eliot

Southwest Airlines

Spiderman (the musical)

Starbucks

Stewart, Martha

Strauss-Kahn, Dominique

SunChips

Taco Bell

Trump, Donald

Tylenol

US Air

Washington Mutual

Woods, Tiger

Xerox

ValuJet /AirTran

Vick, Michael

Soon my new book BRAND TURNAROUND How Brands Gone Bad Returned to Glory…and the 7 Game Changers That Made a Difference will hit book stores everywhere. As promised in the book I will post and continue to update my list of Brand Turnaround resources in my blog.

Brand turnarounds can be tough. Having trusted resources to add to your arsenal can certainly excel your efforts. Below are some of my favorite resources that I recommend. They are companies and tools that provide brand related services and knowledge, experts who have advised me and other books and online publications that I’ve gained a lot from.

Crisis Communications and Media Training Experts
Denis Calabrese, Deniscalabrese@aol.com
Frank Robertson, Frank Robertson Media, http://www.frankrobertsonmedia.com/
Merrie Spaeth, Spaeth Communications, Inc., http://spaethcom.com

Customer Loyalty and Winback Expert
Jill Griffin, The Griffin Group, http://www.loyaltysolutions.com

Marketing, Branding Insight Websites and Blogs
Brandchannel, http://www.brandchannel.com
Cool News of the Day, http://www.reveries.com/
MarketingProfs.com, http://www.MarketingProfs.com
MarketingSherpa, http://www.marketingsherpa.com
Marketing Virtual Library, http://www.KnowThis.com
Martin Lindstrom, http://www.martinlindstrom.com/
John Moore, http://brandautopsy.typepad.com
Online marketing, http://www.copyblogger.com/
Andy Sernovitz, http://www.damniwish.com/, http://gaspedal.com/blog
David Taylor, http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com
Nicole Armstrong, http://www.morethanalogoblog.com/
Seth Godin, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Online Brand Monitoring Services
NetBase, Netbase.com
Radian 6, http://www.radian6.com

Research Experts and Brand Value Ranking Reports
The Blackbaud Index of Online Giving, http://www.blackbaud.com/
Brand Keys, http://www.brandkeys.com/
Millward Brown Optimor, http://www.millwardbrown.com
Top 100 Global Brands Report, http://interbrand.com
YouGov, YouGov.com

Story Telling Coach
Doug Stevenson, http://www.dougstevenson.com

Trend Websites and Blogs
Springwise, http://www.springwise.com
Uber cool, http://www.ubercool.com

Live.Foxnews.com the national news outlet invited me to share my thoughts on CEO’s reputation and behavior and their brands. They wanted to know if leadership behavior impacted consumer buying and what are some tips for leaders of brands who may encounter these bumps. The interview ran on Tuesday live. Below are my thoughts. See the video to watch the segment.

After a business misstep is made, follow these 8 steps to recovery:

• Take inventory of the facts and views of stakeholders.
• If the CEO can, conduct brand opinion research after the situation to gauge damage and monitor online chatter.
• Have a recovery plan ready projecting worse case scenarios, including building the story the brand wants the public to remember.
• In most cases, the CEO should be the brand voice and spokesperson but sometimes this is not the case. In this event, careful selection of the spokesperson is key, they should be authoritative and knowledgeable of all the facts.
• If the CEO is the spokesperson around the issue, the CEO should take full responsibility, be prepped on messaging and media management focusing on the solution, not the past or blaming others is essential.
• Leverage real-time social media action and take an offensive approach if the situation crosses the tipping point of high visibility. If the negative situation is contained, sometimes it’s best to remain low profile.
• Disseminate enough positive volume, optimize information to counter negative stories on web via search.
• Again depending on the situation, sometimes 3rd party credible voices like trade associations, other leaders and loyal customers should be part of the voice platforms.

Want more? Pre-order my new book:
Brand Turnaround: How Brands Gone Bad Returned to Glory… and the 7 Game Changers that Made the Difference.

Results from a 25-point social media reach-out research project.
Last month, September 14th to be exact, I posted a blog about such a social media research project. With all the hype around social media marketing strategies and available tactics for businesses, I was curious if a full throttle social media approach would make a difference for a small business with my revenue model. I earn money from consulting, speaking and writing.

Objective: Determine if a 25-point social media effort is worth the investment and results.

TOP LINE FINDINGS FROM STUDY
Is a social media blitz on 25 different points of contact a good use of time and money that produces a meaningful return and results vs. the cost?
In my opinion, to date, from these efforts, NO. Could this change in 6 months, YES. It’s too early to track long-tail results such as if the Fox News report touches a book buyer, another media source or a future client from the visibility.

We invested over $3,800 in time, and that time could have been used for higher income generating activities. (As a side note, I realize my current business model has limited online revenue channels to convert, monetize and track.) But with our current model, the time and money resources we spent on social media, I believe this investment could have been better used and generated more of a return if we had spent that same amount on direct sales initiatives, ad words and media buys to produce better results.

Could these efforts payoff later?
Yes, the good thing about social media is, once it’s out there, it’s pretty permanent, so future clients could stumble upon our past efforts, articles and links. Additionally, the new visitors who come back to the site can buy products and services in the future now that they are aware of my site. And all of these social media efforts do aid in Search Engine Optimization. And for me SEO produced over $100,000 in fees this past year alone.

Was there one powerful means of social media that I believe is really worth it’s weight in gold from this test?
Our Mailchimp newsletter, (which is an aggregation of our blog feed) drives the most traffic to our site. Our Google analytics also shows that the top referral sources include: Twitter, TalentZoo newsletter and key media coverage.

If you decide to try monitoring your efforts and results from social media, you must first define what good results look like. For my companies, success from a marketing effort would look like:  More value than investment.

Our value framework was defined as:

• An increase in unique visitors to site
• An increase in new opt-ins to our mailing list
• An increase in affiliate sales
• An increase in book and product sales
• An increase in speaking engagements
• An increase in consulting projects
• An increase in (a top-tier, media source calling me for an interview)

Our value achieved that we can quantify:

• We’ve had an increase in unique visitors to our site by 100%
• We had 20 opt-ins to our mailing list in last 30 days (value $10.00 each)
• We sold 7 affiliate items and earned $7.00
• New book sales (can’t track yet)
• Product sales via tools store (our store was not up at the time of this test)
• New speaking engagements from blog (0)
• New consulting projects from blog (0)
• Top-tier media source interview (1) – Live.Foxnews.com booked me for 10/25

Investment is defined as time and money:
I look at time invested as actually paid time, plus the cost of missed opportunity because our time was tied up on this social media project, other tasks were put to the side.

Time expense on this project was calculated at: 17 hours at $300 an hour = $3700
My time includes: writing of the initial blog that we were touting (Branding and the Beast – How to not get bullied.), the blog about our 25-point study, I planned and did analysis of this project, completed items 1-8 out of 25 on the list and wrote this follow up blog of our results.

My staff‘s time to do list items 9-25 and participate in planning and analysis of our project was equal to 10 hours at an average of $60.00. Billable rate = $600.00.

Total cost of project: $4,300.00
Results that you can take to the bank = 0
Soft results that possibly can translate in future earnings = $500.00
Bottom line: Loss of $3,800.00

The 25-point social media activities we did to promote the blog and gain meaningful results, see original post for list.

Bottom line – should businesses bank on this type of expense?
I believe strong brands are cumulative efforts and any business’ marketing should include a diverse mix of touch points including social media.

Do you think social media efforts should have the same pull as a sharply designed direct response campaign where the credibility helps and sometime just the right placement turns into a home run at the end of season?

Brand On!

Being a successful entrepreneur is no candy-coated, sweet-cake walk.  It’s often more like a grueling marathon. If it were an easy ride the unemployment rate would be less, fewer people would be upset about capitalism and they wouldn’t occupy streets in America being the 99% frustrated over the economy. Instead they’d be focused on finding 99 solutions to grow their business. Nothing against the protest, that’s a great American freedom, it just seems like no mission, no message, no plan.

We all make choices and if you’ve made the choice to be a successful entrepreneur and love life with all its ups and downs, do read on.

Entrepreneurship is a highly challenging game. To win you’ve got to be fit and possess a sustainable, sharp, entrepreneurial competitive edge to thrive.

Here are 5 tips that have made a difference in my journey.

1) Confidence and positive attitude are 95% of the drill.
Anyone who says you are too confident or too positive is either jealous, fearful of you beating them out or fearful of you succeeding and then leaving them behind. If I look back at my life and greatest achievements, these attributes were game changers.

I’m sure you’ve read this tip in many entrepreneur blogs and magazines, so to make sure you get hard meaningful value from this post, I’m sharing a real world example of how this works for me.

(Actual event) Recently, a client asked me for my fee to re-brand their company. With extreme confidence, I proposed double my historic fee, absolutely believing I would exceed his company’s expectations and deliver solid value to their event. The client agreed to the fee and I did hit a home run.

2) Go out on a limb, stick your neck out and take risks.
It is a heck of a lot riskier to do nothing or consistently play it safe. Often the key here is to re-frame a situation. Change your story from scary and dangerous to intentional, certain and positive outcome.

(Actual event) I often invest in business expenses, like: research, expert insight, staff and coaches before my compensation comes in from the project. By doing so, this extra expense actually adds pressure on me to perform at a higher level and 90% of the time,  I do. On my last book deal, I had over $2500 in hard costs and over $5,000 in my time just on my proposal creation, way before I was insured a contract and an advance.

3) Network and play up.
This means don’t be hanging out with peers that are your equals all the time, but you must put yourself in situations where there are people much smarter and more successful than you. The trick here is in order to pull this off, you must master tip #1. This move may take some sacrifice (skipping another expense) because to play in this league, many times it costs a lot more. That’s why you often won’t see your medium competitors at these  (more expensive) situations and events.

(Actual event) When I travel I never stay at medium hotels. Why? Because if I did the chances of me meeting a new quality business prospect are statistically beyond low.  Same goes for buying tickets to seminars, like when I went to see Tony Robins, if they have premium seats, that’s where you will find me, not within the section of  “wannabes”.

For more on how to become an entrepreneur, view:
The ageless entrepreneur.

The other day I stumbled upon an article about two people in their seventy’s running 26 mile marathons last year. Judy Loy and John Fredrickson both started this sport late in life, John started when he turned fifty. That’s pretty darn impressive especially considering John used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and Judy equally amazing as she started at 60 and has had five knee operations in the past decade.

And then I read about:

Andrea Bocelli — who didn’t start singing opera seriously until the age of 34. Many ‘experts’ told him it was too late to begin.

Julia Child — didn’t even learn to cook until she was almost 40 and didn’t launch her popular show until she was 50.

Harlan Sanders — the Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, was 66 when he began to promote his style of cooking and created an empire.

Phyliss Diller — Diller became a comedian at the age of 37. She was told by many club owners that she was “too old” to become a success.

So if you are thinking it’s too late to start your business or you are too old to catch an unlikely dream, think again. It’s never too late, unless all you do is ponder and don’t take action.

Go for it! What could be the worst thing that could happen? You fail and start again.

To read more on starting a business, view:
Starting a business is cheaper than you think.

If better restaurant marketing and branding are on your radar screen, check out my first DIY niche site dedicated to restaurant owners and marketing folks. It’s called Restaurant Branding Roadmap and all new opt-ins to the community will receive a free report on 25 things restaurant customers think that they don’t tell you. This project is the first of our many sites addressing DIY small business needs with quality, experienced and affordable business expertise. Currently Restaurant Branding Roadmap host a blog, a Twitter presence, a Facebook page and soon a Linkedin group to provide restaurant marketing and branding articles, discussions and tools. In January we will launch a membership-based course that will cover: concept development, community building, publicity, social media, grand openings and much more. If you’ve got friends in the restaurant industry please help us spread the word.

For more on restaurant marketing/branding, view:
5 profit producing strategies for restaurants or any business.
If you want to be a standout restaurant brand – don’t do these 5 things.